Safa Mirror is a trans-disciplinary artist, researcher, and Tarotière, delving in the intersections of art, magick, and mysticism. Her research focuses on analyzing, deconstructing, and contextualizing Middle-Eastern mystical traditions, alongside Western esoteric practices. As a performer, she utilizes her research to decipher, translate and perform the mystical Persian poetry of Rumi, Hafez, Nasimi, and others. Additionally, as a Tarotière, she synthesizes her research and performance to engage in the transcendental art of divination, offering insights drawn from both Eastern and Western wisdom traditions. Safa’s work is presented here https://www.safamirror.com/We are pleased to welcome Safa to this podcast capsule on Radical Imagination. Together, we explore the essence of imagination and the unique ways Safa taps into it. We dive into her relationship and practice with Tarot and Sufi poetry, uncovering how they serve both as tools for personal and collective sensemaking and as a means to uplift marginalized and vulnerable voices. In a moving story shared at the end of the episode, Safa highlights the power of dedication as means of anchoring oneself in service to a larger whole.
Ginie Servant-Miklos is an engaged environmental educator with fifteen years of experience in education practice, research, and advocacy. She currently holds an Assistant Professorship in behavioural sciences at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her research and education work focuses on developing innovative pedagogies for societal impact. She developed the Experimental Pedagogics educational design framework, co-founded the Bildung Climate School with Prof. Rutger Engels, and is the author of the best-selling book, Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for the End of the World as We Know It. Ginie is an associate member of the Club of Rome and Senior Fellow of the Comenius Network for educational innovators in the Netherlands. She is the founder and Chair of the Board of the FairFight Foundation, an organisation that provides girls and women from Zambia, Zimbabwe, and India with the mental and physical benefits of martial arts practice, as well as educational support. Ginie is a vocal activist for sustainability and gender equality, advocating for change through public engagements like TEDx talks, debates, podcasts, and other digital media outlets.We are pleased to welcome Ginie on this podcast capsule on Radical Imagination. We explore the transformative power of imagination and experiential education in the face of societal and environmental crises. Ginie shares her journey from human rights advocacy to education, emphasizing the need for actionable dreams and imperfect solidarities to create meaningful change. She highlights the role of love, forgiveness, and defiance in education as tools for resilience and empowerment. Ginie also talks about her new book Pedagogies of Collapse. This radically honest, open-access book confronts the reality of collapse, acknowledging the allure of denial and despair while choosing a path of hope. Pedagogies of Collapse presents a compelling, fact-based argument for urgent action but avoids falling into the conventional categories of environmental discourse. The ebook version, A Hopeful Education for the End of the World as We Know It, is available as open access here: Bloomsbury Collections.
Francesco Bravin is a cultural anthropologist and the president and founding member of the Cultural Association Antropolis in Milan. He has a Bachelor's degree in Intercultural Communication at the University of Turin, a Master's degree in Anthropology at the University of Milan Bicocca and a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Genoa. He researched mainly in the field of anthropology of tourism and anthropology of food, focusing on the Cinque Terre, in Italy.We are pleased to welcome Francesco, who will share his experience as educator on the subject of radical imagination. Francesco positions radical imagination at the core of the ethnographic method, as it requires the nurturing of similar qualities of curiosity and non judgement. He shares two educational projects where he applies radical imagination and openly discusses their challenges and opportunities. Listen to the episode to hear more about it.Links:www.associazioneantropolis.org
The Ethnographic Tarot Project intertwines the magic and mystery of tarot with the depth of anthropological inquiry. This initiative seeks to develop a distinctive tarot deck infused with ethnographic and anthropological themes, serving not only as a medium for reflection and divination but also as an innovative teaching tool aimed at enlightening students about the intricacies of ethnographic research. The aim is to collaboratively design a tarot deck that transcends traditional usage, becoming an educational resource that prompts students to explore and understand ethnographic research methodologies and anthropological insights. Each card will be thoughtfully re-imagined to incorporate significant anthropological themes, inviting contemplation on diversity, interconnectedness, frictions, and the politics and ethics of ethnographic practice. The Ethnographic Tarot Project is led by Priyanka Borpujari, Dr Fiona Murphy, and Dr Ana Ivasiuc. We are pleased to welcome the team behind The Ethnographic Tarot Project: The Arcana of Inquiry who will discuss the project's intentions, its origins, and its future direction. They will explore how tarot complements the ethnographic practice and its potential to serve as a versatile educational resource for research, supervision, and writing. More broadly, they examine how this empowering practice can shift perspectives, unlock creative potential, and deepen reflection for practitioners. Finally, they will share their thoughts on what is needed to foster more radical imagination within the neoliberal academic space. Listen to the episode to hear more about it. We have set one of the project’s tarot cards as a visual for this podcast episode. The Ethnographic Tower card within the tarot deck serves as a powerful metaphor for the tumultuous yet transformative process inherent in anthropological work. This card encapsulates the themes of upheaval, deconstruction, and the necessity for renewal, making it an exceptional teaching tool for understanding the dynamics of ethnographic inquiry. Copyright (for the artwork): Priyanka Borpujari. Links: https://www.scribd.com/document/760415134/Ethnographic-Tarot-Project (contribution deadline extended to September 20th 2024)
Dace Dzenovskais Associate Professor in the Anthropology of Migration at the University of Oxford and the Principal Investigator of the EMPTINESS project. She holds doctoral and master’s degrees in Social Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an interdisciplinary master’s degree in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University. We are happy to have Dace with us speaking to her background and her experience and thoughts on isolation. She shares about her current research on emptiness and links it to isolation. Through fieldwork stories, she further details the condition of emptiness of which isolation is an element and explores what happens when this condition is seen as a site of opportunities. Lastly, she talks about what excites her the most about coming to the conference as well as her advice to those considering to attend. Listen to the episode to hear more about it.